Second Sailing

With the in-laws visit coming to a close we had to get them out on the water at least once. Finally on Saturday the fog had lifted and the wind was 10 knots so we took the opportunity. The weather was pretty dreary and cold and the kids were not impressed about going out again. It took us ten minutes to just get the boys to go on the boat with constant reassuring that it would be much smoother than last time, of course I was praying in my head that this really would be the case. We dragged them on kicking and screaming and shoved off.

The cockpit is a complete, disgusting mess, since we can't set tools up on the dock we have to do out cutting in there, sawdust everywhere. 

The whole time we motored out of the harbor Finn clutched onto me like a koala, shut his eyes and I assume was just waiting for it to be over. Thankfully the wind was low and the waves non existent so I tried to get the boys to relax. Aislinn on the other hand is not scared, actually she's a bit too comfortable, it's hard to keep her in the cockpit when all we wants to do is hang off the bow of the boat, a la Titanic.

The poor dog is a bit skeeved out by it all too, but I'm less worried about her adjusting. We didn't bother with the main sail this time, we knew we wouldn't be out long so we unfurled the jib and cut the motor, we tacked back and forth across the mouth of the harbor a couple times, coasting along at about 2.5 knots, the boys finally asked if we were actually moving at one point and started to unclench. After an hour we headed back in, the boys were our look outs from the starboard hatch. 

All in all it was a much more successful trip than last time. We've decided that every calm day we get we will take the kids out, just motoring in the boat so they can get used to just being on the water, they need some relaxing experiences before we actually try to sail anywhere.

We also need experience in docking Sweets, we are on an end tie close to the entrance of the marina but we have boats docked on either side of the dock and it is difficult to maneuver into a good position. There is a floating log barrier leading up to the boat launch and fisherman dock and it's a very busy area with the fishing boats constantly coming and going and we are just so wide! The marina manager suggested it might be easier for us to shoot past our slip and turning around by the fisherman dock and slide into our spot on the starboard side, which we tried to do yesterday, unfortunately, good in theory but difficult to execute, we are too wide to turn enough to get in that way. Sweets doesn't exactly turn on a dime.